Abingdonian 2020

35 www.abingdon.org.uk Lent Term Chess Club The new school year began with Abingdon participating in the English Chess Federation’s Eton Rapidplay tournament, with an aim of qualifying for the regional stage of the National Schools’ Chess Championship by scoring 15.5 points from 30 games across five rounds of fixtures. Abingdon began well, defeating Brentwood School’s B squad (6-0) in the opening round, before losing to eventual tournament winners RGS Guildford (0-6) in round two. Round three saw a difficult loss to Skinners’ School (1-5), although Frederick Beneat performed well to beat his higher- ranked opponent. Round four saw Abingdon secure a win against MCS’s B squad (4.5-1.5), leaving us requiring four points from the final match against St Paul’s Girls’ School. Unfortunately, a strong performance by our opponents led to a loss (1-5), leaving us three points short of the score required for qualification. The individual results at Eton were 1. Ross Tselos (1.5/5), 2. Oliver Yau (2/5), 3. Frederick Beneat (3/5), 4. Jonathan Lee (3/5), 5. Seb Watkins (2/5), 6. Eric Huang (1/2), 7. Stephen Lin (0/2) and 8. Dhruv Lakhani (0/1). October saw the return of the simultaneous display, with Grandmaster Mr Wells playing against 22 players simultaneously in the CMR with a time control of 70 minutes per player. It was great to see a mixture of experienced boys as well as newcomers to the school from the first year and third year take part in the display. Mr Wells managed to secure wins on 21 boards but congratulations went to Seb Watkins for securing a well-deserved victory on time after a tense showdown on the final two boards, with Ross Tselos also performing well but just falling short of a result. The House Chess competition took place on the last Wednesday of the Michaelmas Term, with all houses fielding three players in a Swiss system tournament with three rounds. The final results were as follows: 1st – Border’s 2nd – Franklin’s 3rd – Austin 4th – School 5th - Crescent 6th – Donnelly’s 7th – James’ 8th – Pygott’s 9th – O’Doherty’s The Border’s House team of Frederick Beneat, Henry Riehl and Roscoe Marshall did exceptionally well to score 6.5/9 across the three rounds, securing the win with a close-fought 1.5-1.5 draw in round three against Franklin’s who took second place – a great change of fortune for Border’s after finishing in ninth place in last year’s competition! The Lower School inter-tutor group chess tournament took place in the Lent Term with the grand final seeing first year champions 1H (Xien Hu, Gleb Kuprin and Dhruv Lakhani) take on second year winners 2P (Aluinn McDonald, William Sue and Harry Vinall). 1H were victorious, winning seven of the nine games. Following promotion from Division 4 of the Oxford and District Chess League last year, Abingdon begun the 2019-20 season in Division 3 in October with a well-earned win against City 3 (4.5- 1.5), including wins from Eric Huang, Frederick Beneat, Stephen Lin and Dhruv Lakhani. After seven matches in February, Abingdon were sitting in sixth place, level on points with City 3 and occupying the relegation spot, with a crucial match away to City 3 scheduled for March looking likely to decide who would remain in Division 3 at the end of the season. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Abingdon’s final three matches of the season did not take place and the 2019-20 season was cancelled. In the coming 2020- 21 season, Abingdon will begin a new campaign online and look to continue competing and achieving results against experienced teams across Oxfordshire and the surrounding area. The individual results from Abingdon’s seven matches in Division 3 in 2019- 20 were Frederick Beneat (3.5/7), Seb Watkins (1/6), Mr Barber (2.5/5), Dhruv Lakhani (2/5), Jonathan Lee (1.5/5), Stephen Lin (1/4), Eric Huang (1.5/3), Oliver Yau (0.5/3), Dr Jeffreys (1/2), Ethan Chui (0/1) and Charlie Leyland (0/1). After the closure of the school in late March due to the COVID-19 lockdown, Abingdon School’s Chess Club moved online to chess.com for the remainder of the school year, including a weekly chess puzzle challenge submitted to the boys via email. Congratulations go to Seb Watkins for winning the challenge overall, finishing ahead of Frederick Beneat and Dhruv Lakhani in second and third places respectively. Final congratulations go to this year’s recipient of the King Chess Trophy, Jonathan Lee. Jonathan has been a dedicated and valuable member of Abingdon Chess Club throughout his time at the school, being a key member of the ODCL squad and showing good leadership on a weekly basis to help younger pupils develop their chess game in Other Half sessions. Lawrence Barber